In hindsight, Wednesday's game in Atlanta had all the makings of a trap for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The day before, center Dwight Howard powered through an emotional few hours in his first game back in Orlando since he was traded last summer — he was booed lustily by the home fans, naturally, but responded with 39 points and 16 rebounds.

Going from that atmosphere to a game against a Hawks team that was without starters Jeff Teague and Josh Smith, in a building that was mostly pro-Lakers, LA came out flat and just didn't have enough to recover.

The big blow for the Lakers came with just 3.9 seconds left, when Kobe Bryant — who averaged 30.3 points on 49.2 percent shooting since the All-Star break — attempted a tying baseline jumper, his left foot coming down awkwardly on defender Dahntay Jones' foot.

After the game, Bryant suggested that Jones was at fault for undercutting him, saying, "It's just a very, very dangerous play, especially if I'm fading away. There's no rhyme or reason why I should come down anywhere near somebody's foot."

Jones, though, defended himself by saying Bryant had kicked out his leg, which is technically an offensive foul.

And for the Lakers, who's to blame for his injuries is all trivia now — what matters is that they probably will be without Bryant for a while, and they're going to have to find a way to keep up in the postseason picture.

They've made an impressive rally in the last two months, but it will be all for naught if they can't weather the Bryant-less storm.

If the problem for the Lakers early in the season was a matter of having too many stars and not being able to figure out how to use them, at least it can now be said they're down to just two stars.

If the problem in the early days of the Mike D'Antoni administration was that the coach didn't know how to take advantage of what his players can do best, he is now down to two stars who fit his offense perfectly.

Ideally, a D'Antoni team runs first, and then goes quickly into pick-and-roll offense. These guys still aren't going to run a whole lot, but if you've got Nash and Howard, you can most certainly pick-and-roll.

If the Lakers with only Nash and Howard left standing operate anything like the Phoenix Suns did when D'Antoni coached Nash and Amare Stoudemire, be prepared to see D'Antoni turn to the pick-and-roll somewhere around 75 percent of the time.

This might not be a bad thing for Nash. Before the season started, he talked freely about the need for everyone on the Lakers to sacrifice their own statistics for the benefit of the team.

With Bryant taking over the offense recently and Howard steadily improving since January, the big sacrifice has come from Nash. He is averaging 12.4 points but has become much more of a spot-up shooter, posting only 6.7 assists. That would be his lowest assist number in 13 years.

Nash adjusted his game to play off Bryant. Now he will have to adjust back to his old double-digit assist self. He is still as effective as ever when it comes to shooting, on pace to reach the magical milestone of 50 percent shooting, 40 percent 3-point shooting and 90 percent free-throw shooting for an incredible fifth time in his career (currently, he is at 50.1, 43.4 and 90.9 percent).

It's not all on Nash, though.

You can't get assists when other players aren't sinking shots, and in D'Antoni's offense, the emphasis will be on 3-pointers. The Lakers are an average 3-point shooting team, but that will have to be a staple of their Kobe-free offense.

This has been, even going back to training camp, a chicken-wire-and-bubble-gum kind of season for the Lakers, taking the lumps that come with failed expectations but still managing to grind through injuries and coaching changes to come to the crossroads of the stretch run.

That's where they are now, and they can adjust on the fly, win some games and still plow into the playoffs (after Indiana on Friday, the Lakers' next three foes have a combined record of 66-128). Their ability to do that rests on the shoulders of Howard and Nash.